Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Yuletide in south Florida may not mean sub-zero temperatures and winds that whip the very hair from your head. But even those of us who don't suffer in the climate department like a good diversion from the busyness of the season. So sit back, forget the presents that need to be wrapped and take a load off with me.

• If you've read this blog for any period of time, you know that my heart beats for genre fiction. You not be aware, though, how much I wish its authors showed a little more literary moxie, a basic understanding of how to make language leap and sing. There's little reason not to educate ourselves in it, particularly given the wealth of free resources online. For example, Paul Brians has posted the entirety of his Common Errors in English Usage on the Washington State University Web site, so you have no excuse for confusing abstruse with obtuse or misspelling queue. Another great volume (and a surprisingly engaging read) is Thrall and Hibbard's 1960 edition of A Handbook To Literature, available for download at the Internet Archive. Never have definitions of terms such as autotelic, mythopoeic and Wardour-Street English been so entertaining.

• While we're discussing literature, the short film New Boy shows just how literary stories ought to be told. This Oscar-nominated tale of an orphaned African boy trying to find his way in the Irish school system doesn't do much new. It simply focuses on universal human experience and remembers to keep things moving. Might sound old-school, but Boy somehow makes it seem novel.